The Deadly Fancy Dress Party

The very ordinary getting cloaked in Radicalism

“First, we destroyed the small statue. It was a woman. Then we blew up her husband.”  Taliban Leader Mullah Mohammad Omar during a press conference March 2001.
The radicals blasted a treasure of their ancient heritage; the moderates defended the radicals.
The Taliban were assisted by Saudi/Pakistani engineers in the destruction of the ancient Bamiyan Buddha statues while Al Jazeera was the only outfit permitted to film the destruction. 

From the Preface of Amartya Sen’s Identity & Violence, 2007

Oscar Wilde made the enigmatic claim, “most people are other people.” This may sound like one of his more outrageous conundrums, but in this case Wilde defended his view with considerable cogency: “Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” We are indeed influenced to an amazing extent by people with whom we identify. Actively promoted sectarian hatreds can spread like wildfire, as we have seen recently in Kosovo, Bosnia, Ruwanda, Timor, Israel, Palestine, Sudan, and many other places in the world. With suitable instigation, a fostered sense of identity with one group can be made into powerful weapon to brutalize another.

Indeed, many of the conflicts and barbarities in the world are sustained through the illusion of a unique and choiceless identity, The art of constructing hatred takes the form of invoking the magical power of some allegedly predominant identity that drowns other affiliations, and in a conveniently bellicose form can also overpower any human sympathy or natural kindness that we may normally have. The result can be homespun elemental violence, or globally artful violence and terrorism.

In fact, a major source of potential conflict in the contemporary world is the presumption that people can be uniquely categorized based on religion or culture. The implicit belief in the overarching power of a single classification can make the world thoroughly inflammable. A uniquely divisive view goes not only against the old-fashioned belief that all human beings are much the same but also against the less discussed but much more plausible understanding that we are diversely different. The world is frequently taken to be a collection of religions (or of ‘civilizations” or “cultures”), ignoring the other identities that people have and value, involving class, gender, profession, language, science, morals, and politics. This unique divisiveness is much more confrontational than the universe of plural and diverse classifications that shape the world in which we actually live. The reductionism of high theory can make a major contribution, often inadvertently to the violence of low politics.

Also, global attempts to overcome such violence are often handicapped by a similar conceptual disarray, with the acceptance-explicitly or by implication-of a unique identity forestalling many of the obvious avenues of resistance. As a consequence, religion based violence might end up being challenged not through the strengthening of civil society (obvious as that course is), but through the deployment of different religious leaders of apparently “moderate” persuasion who are challenged not through suitably refining demands of the religion involved. When interpersonal relations are seen in singular intergroup terms, as “amity” or “dialogue” among civilizations or religious ethnicities, paying no attention to other groups to which the same persons also belong (involving economic, social, political, or other cultural connections), then much of importance of human life is altogether lost, and individuals are put into little boxes.
Above is a a gleaning from the book titled “Identity and Violence’ by Amartya Sen. ISBN-13: 978-0-393-32929-2

The magnificent free-standing statue carved out of a single rock is the tallest Buddha statue in existence today. Following the destruction of similar but much larger statues at Bamiyan in Afghanistan, the Aukana Buddha has gained even greater significance in the Buddhist World.

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India Trains Terrorists

Concrete Evidence of India Training Terrorists

 Indian Intervention in Sri Lanka: written by Rohan Gunaratna

The first concrete piece of evidence that India was subverting Sri Lanka came from a small group youth arrested by the Sri Lanka security forces in Jaffna. However the details of interrogation were not divulged for reason unknown, perhaps political or even diplomatic ones.

When the sequence of events was later reconstructed, this is how it had happened: a specially hand-picked group of youth, who had come to Tamil Nadu as refugees from Trincomalee was taken to New Delhi. There, they were trained in the use of 9mm pistols, AK-47 rifles and the Indian SMG (sub-machine guns) of Indian make; in the manufacture of parcel bombs and the laying of booby traps; the use of radio communication through the Morse Code to secret letter-writing; identification of ranks; assessing the moments, strength of troops and vehicles in a camp; conducting surveillance and counter-surveillance; and in cultivating informants and collecting strategic information.

This group was taken from New Delhi to the Bombay harbor, and taught how to identify ships by flags and by form. They were trained specially in the identification of the destroyers, cruisers, minesweepers, gun boats, missile cruisers, missile boats, torpedo boats, aircraft carriers, submarines, oil tankers and passenger ships. They were instructed as to the manner in which they should pass the information from Trincomalee to Madras. This involved a New Delhi Post Office Box number.
[According to the Thomas A. Marks, a US military analyst, Indira Gandhi was very concerned about the developments in Trincomalee and the Indian RAW responded by training militants to monitor the possible US involvement in Trincomalee.]

They were returned to Tamil Nadu and then sent to Jaffna with few rupees. Most of the members of this group were from Trincomalee. The operation failed because Jaffna was new; an alien land to them. Within a few hours, before they could return to India or get back to Trincomalee, the security forces received information that there were strangers in Jaffna who did not know their where about-they were soon apprehended and interrogated, and the information extracted was passed onto Colombo. Interestingly, the captured militants had identified a sign board in New Delhi as a landmark where the initial training was conducted. When Colombo informed the Sri Lanka High Commission in New Delhi to locate the board, the Indians promptly removed it. [Sri Lanka High Commission, New Delhi, 1986; diplomatic source]
Initial training was made available at three locations- Chakrata near Dehra Dun in Uttara Pradesh, Ramakrishapuram in New Delhi, and at a location near the Delhi International Airport.

The location of Chakara was the most secretive. Previously, it was a top secret military complex code named “Establishment Two Two” (written as ‘Establishment 22’) where RAW with CIA jointly trained Tibetan Kampas to subvert Chinese occupied Tibet. This was later converted into a base exclusively for the Sri Lanka Operation. After, the number of locations within India reserved for training Sri Lankan Tamil militants grew, and several other military and paramilitary institutions were co-opted for this purpose. Eight camps in three north Indian locations which were managed by RAW trained 350 TELO cadres, 200 EROS cadres and 70 PLOTE cadres.

Above is an extraction from the book title “Indian Intervention in Sri Lanka” written by Rohan Gunaratna in the year1993. [ISBN 955-95199-0-5]

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India bombs Sri Lanka with Dhal

India bombs Parippu Dhal to Sri Lanka with a view to Invade- year 1987

Following is a gleaning from the book titled ‘Tigers of Lanka: From Boys to Guerrillas” by the Indian journalist M. R. Narayan Swamy ISBN 81-220-0386-9

On June 3, that intervention took the form of a flotilla of 19 fishing boats loaded with 38 tonnes of pulses, bread, vegetables, milk, rice, salt, kerosene and match boxes which set sail for Jaffna from Rameshwaram, in Tamil nadu, flying Red Cross flags. On board were nearly 100 journalists. But the Sri Lankan navy barred the way, and the flotilla returned to Tamil Nadu after six-hour sea odyssey.

The next day, giving Colombo a bare 35-mintue notice, five Indian AN-32 transporters took off from Banglore and, with a protective ring thrown by
four Mirage fighters, air dropped 25 tonnes of relief material over Jaffna. It was Gandhi’s response to the Sri Lankan refusal to entertain the
flotillas. The Indian government made I clear that any shooting a he aircraft would be met by force. A livid Athulathmudali, his ‘Operation Liberation” now in limbo, said some of the Indian food was eaten by crows after they fell into the Jaffna lagoon.

The Indian intervention marked a new chapter in the ethnic conflict and culminated within two months in the historic India Sri Lanka accord. The air drop was also the most explicit warning Gandhi administered to Jayawardena about Indian intentions vis-à-vis Sri Lanka. The Tamil Times of London claimed that India was no more a mediator in Sri Lanka. ‘She (has) chosen her side in the Sri Lankan conflict,’ the journal said. ‘She has identifies herself with the Sri Lankan Tamils… Sri Lankan Tamils all over the world... can only entrust their fae in the hands of mother India.”

Although the June 4 air drop was portrayed as a hastily devised response to the Sri Lankan blockade of the Indian relief flotilla, it was not so. The military Intelligence (MI) had thought of tit well in advance as a contingency. A day before the drop, the MI –which had got sucked into Sri Lankan affairs in 1986-was ready with a map of Colombo marked with offices and residences of President Jayawardena, Prime Minister Premadasa, Athulathmudali, Joint Operations Command (JOC) chief Nalin Seneviratne, Sri Lankan Police chief Ernest Perera and three service chiefs. In the case of Athulathmudalai, the MI also had the address of a Burgher woman he was known to be friendly with and whom he reportedly visited in the evenings accompanied by a lone security guard. The grandiose plan was to seize all the VIPs-including the president and prime minister-if the Indian planes were shot down by the Sri Lankans.

The MI also found out the strength of all police stations and military garrisons in and around Colombo and location of open grounds where Indian troops could be conveniently paradropped or landed to carry out the blitzkrieg. These included the St. Peters College ground, the sports ministry playground, the S.S. C. cricket ground, the C.C.C. playground, the Galle Face green, the Campbell Park, the St, Joseph’s College ground, the Zahira College ground, the St. Benedicts College ground and the Sugathadasa stadium.

To prevent any possible backlash on the Indian community, the Indian high commission asked its diplomats and staff and Indian nationals in Colombo to move into luxury hotels ahead of June 4. But fortunately, the air drop passed off peacefully. No wonder, Dixit later called the so-called mercy mission, “ operation Poomalai” (Garland), India’s ‘first military projection into Sri Lanka short of actual violence” What he did not say was that had Colombo reacted violently, it would have end up as “Operation Red garland”.

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Planned Indian Invasion of Sri Lanka

The planned Indian invasion of Sri Lanka in 1986
To teach Colombo “a lesson” for its pro-West foreign policy
Following is an extraction from the book titled ‘Tigers of Lanka: From Boys to Guerrillas” by the Indian journalist M. R. Narayan Swamy ISBN 81-220-0386-9

The Indian government had its own reasons for training the Tamils. Sources in all Tamil groups now assert that India was never serious about Ealam and gave then training and arms only to teach Colombo “a lesson” for its pro-West foreign policy. At the most New Delhi would have wanted the Tamils to secure limited autonomy. But it was widely rumored then-both in Sri Lanka and India-that Mrs. Gandhi might do a Bangladesh or Cyprus in the island’s northeast. The rumor was reinforced by what the Indian trainers told the trainees. ‘We have to finish this soon,’ Shankar Rajee quotes an Indian army officer as telling him, referring to a batch under training in Dehra Dun. ‘We need a scout force to lead us. You are not going do the real fighting. But be prepared.” Shankar added:’ The message that was given was clear-cut. The Indians were going to intervene.”

Douglas Devananada, who now lives in Colombo, said the way the Indian army officers conducted themselves, “we realized that they were only trying to use us (in their gameplan).”
S, who went on a four-month stint to Dehra Dun in October 1983, said the Indians, obviously under instructions, ‘asked us to take various photographs when we got back (to Sri Lanka). When we refused, the officers got angry. Our trainer said no training would be given in that case. So we gave in. but we said we will take the photographers only after consulting our leaders.’
Added B, another Tamil trained in India:’ The trainers asked us numerous questions about bridges, railway tracks, places to land, the depth of the sea, the coastline. They promised to teach us how to read maps and blow the up, but suddenly changed their mind. When we pressed them, they gave us quick lessons in map reading…Two of had been trained by the PLO. We knew that what the Indians were teaching us was useless stuff.”
Another Tamil said: “The Indians taught us conventional war. We learnt guerilla war ourselves, studying books and magazines and of course by sheer experience.” Other Tamils, however, claimed that guerilla war was part of the Indian curriculum.
There were other irritants too. The Indian trainers knew they were doing sensitive work, but took it as another job. Some appeared sincerely concerned about the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Some, the Tamils said, were indifferent. One trainees said: ‘When I was there, two things happened which hurt us. First they (Indians) gave us enough time to assemble and dismantle our weapons. Later they arbitrarily reduced the time and began to hurry us. The even stopped the 10 a. m. tea. I don’t know why. These might look petty, but it hurts us very much. We asked ourselves: Is this India our folks at home have been worshipping? At the end of it all we were firm that it is we who should do the fighting for Eelam, not the Indians.’

But promises of arms deliveries and some diplomatic approach by RAW officials washed away the hurt feelings of many. “They agency people,” said one militant, referring to RAW agents, ‘were very nice to us. They told us: ‘Don’t worry. We will give you all that you want. But please have patience.’”
Each group knew that the other was also being trained, but no two groups ever came face to face. From September 1983 until India and Sri Lanka signed the accord in July 1987, the RAW trained an estimated 1,200 Tamils in the use of automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and in laying mines, map reading, guerilla war, mountaineering, demolitions and anti-tank warfare. Each training capsule lasted three to four month, and rarely six month. Training was also given separately, on the lines of the army, to ‘officers” and ‘soldiers”. Select members of EROS, LTTE, EPRLF and ENDLF were also given special training in diving and under-sea sabotage. A limited number of Tamils were handpicked for intelligence gathering.
Some trainees were asked to report exclusively on the movement of ships and other activities in Trincomalee. At times, the training was intensive that the Indians actually hurried up the batches, saying: “Look, another group is coming. We have to clear you before that. So better be quick and grasp what we are telling you.’ The last of the “crash courses” was conducted in December 1986, a full month after the Tamil Nadu police cracked down on Tamil militants, seizing their arms and communication equipment. Some training still went on in the weeks preceding the May 1987 Vadamarachchi operation by the Sri Lankan military.

Arms deliveries to various groups began in 1984 and went on almost until the 1987 India-Sri Lanka agreement, punctuated by period and self-deceiving denial that India was not training Sri Lankans or desiring to break-up of the island republic. All three parties in the conflict-the Indian and the Sri Lankan governments and the Tamil militants-knew the truth.

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Similarities over the national boundaries

The Argumentative Indian” by Dr. Amartya Sen
It is true that tolerance [1] has not been advocated by all in the Asian traditions. Nor has that advocacy typically covered everyone though some, such as Asoka, in the third century BCE, did indeed insist on completely universal coverage, without any exception). But much the same can be said about Western traditions as well. There is little evidence that Plato or St Augustine were tolerant and less authoritarian than Confucius. While Aristotle certainly did write on the importance of freedom, women and slaves were excluded from the domain of this concern (an exclusion that, as it happens, Ashoka[2] did not make around roughly the same time).The claim that the basic ideas underlying freedom and tolerance have been central to Western culture over the millennia and are somehow alien to Asia is, I believe, entirely rejectable.

The allegedly sharp contrast between Western and Asian traditions on the subject of freedom and tolerance is based on very poor history. The authoritarian argument based on the special nature of Asian values is particularly dubious. This supplements the more basic argument, presented earlier, that even if it had been the case that the values championed in Asia’s past have been more authoritarian, this historical point would not be grounds enough to reject the importance of tolerance and liberties in contemporary Asia.

Discussion of Asian values draws attention to an important issue underlying attempts at generalization about cultural contrasts between the West and the East, or between Europe and India, and so on. There are indeed many differences also within India itself, or within Europe. And there are also great differences between parts of the Indian intellectual and historical traditions. One of the things that goes deeply wrong with grand contrasts between ‘our culture’ and ‘their culture’ is the tremendous variety within each of these cultures. My old teacher Joan Robinson used to say; ‘Whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true’

It is not that cultural differences are of no importance, but the contrasts do not come in the tailor-made form of some immense opposition between, say, the West and India, with homogeneity inside each.

The problem is, of course, even larger when there are attempts at generalization about ‘Asian’ values. Asia is where about 60 percent of the world’s entire population live. There are no quintessential values that apply to these immensely large and heterogeneous populations which separate them out as a group from people in the rest of the world. Those who have written on the importance of cultural divisions have been right to point to them, and yet the attempt to see these divisions in the over-aggregated form of East-West contrasts hides more than it reveals.

Indeed, generalizations even about an individual religious community within India (such as the Hindus or the Muslims) or about a language group (such as the Bengalis or Gujarat is or Tamils) can be very deeply misleading. Depending on the context, there may be more significant similarity between groups of people in different parts of the country who come from same class, have the same political convictions, or pursue the same profession or work. Such similarity can hold across national boundaries as well. People can be classified in terms of many different criteria and the recent tendency to emphasize some contrasts (such as religion or community), while overlooking others, has ignored important differences even as it has capitalized on others.

The difficulties of communication across cultures are real, as are the judgmental issues raised by the importance of cultural differences. But these recognitions do not lead us to accept the standard distinctions between ‘our culture’ and ‘their culture’. Nor do they give us cause to overlook the demands of practical reason and of political and social relevance in contemporary India, in favor of faithfulness to some alleged historical contrasts. I have tried to show that the contrasts are often not quite as they are depicted, and the lessons to be drawn are hardly the ones that the vigorous champions of ‘our culture’ claim them to be.

There is much to be learned in all this from Satyajit Ray’s appreciation of cultural divides, along with his pursuit of communication across these divides. He never fashioned his creation to cater to what the West may expect from India, but nor did he refuse to enjoy and learn from what Western and other cultures offered. And when it came to the recognition of cultural diversity within India, Ray’s delicate portrayal of the varieties of people that make us what we are as a nation cannot be outmatched. While reflecting on what to focus on in his films, he put the problem beautifully:

What should you put in your films? What can you leave out? Would you leave the city behind and go to the village where cows graze in the endless fields and the shepherd plays the flute? You can make a film here that would be pure and fresh and have the delicate rhythm of a boatman’s song.
Or would you rather go back in time-way back to the Epics, where the gods and the demons took sides in the great battle where brother killed brother[3] and Lord Krishna revivified a desolate prince with the words of the Gita? One could do exciting things here, using the great mimetic tradition of Kathakali[4], as the Japanese use their Noh and Kabuki.
Or would you rather where you are, right in the present, in their heart of this monstrous, teeming, bewildering city, and try to orchestrate its dizzying contrasts of sight and sound and milieu?

The celebration of these differences-the ‘dizzying contrasts’-is far from what can be found in the labored generalizations about ‘our culture’, ‘our modernity’ distinctly unique and immune from the influence of ‘their culture’, their modernity’. In our heterogeneity and in our openness lies our pride, not disgrace. Satyajit Ray taught us this, and the lesson is profoundly important for India. And for Asia, and for the world.
Above is a gleaning from the book titled “The Argumentative Indian” composed by Dr. Amartya Sen.

Footnotes by bunpeiris
[1] Tolerance: religious tolerance of ancient Sri Lanka
The third of Anuradhapura's great monasteries, Abhayagiri lie on the northern side of the city. The great monastery was founded by King Vatttagamani Abhaya (Valagambahu) (104-76 BC) in 88 BC. King Valagambahu had lost his throne to an army of marauding Dravidian invaders from South India. Whilst escaping from the city, the king was taunted by a Jain priest of the Giri Monastery, who shouted: "The great black Sinhala lion is fleeing". An Indian Jain monk having a Jain hermitage in then capital of Buddhist Lanka itself, is an outstanding indication of the religious tolerance of ancient Lanka. In spite of the religious tolerance in the island, the contempt of the Jain monk towards the Sinhalese & the Sinhalese king brought nothing but the downfall of Jain monastery. The king even while fleeing, vowed to regain his kingdom & built a Buddhist monastery over the Jain hermitage. Fourteen years later, the lion-hearted king rescued his island from the marauding Dravidian invaders, razed the Jain hermitage to the ground & established a Buddhist monastery. Written by bunpeiris
http://www.mysrilankaholidays.com/abhayagiri-dagoba.html

[2] Ashoka
It was at the summit of this hill that then king of Lanka, the famous Deer Hunter, King Devanam Piya Tissa (307-266 BC) pursing a stag to the top of the hill, found himself confronted by Arahat (supremely enlightened Buddhist monk) Mahinda, the son of the one & only Indian emperor to bring whole of India under a single standard, the Great Mauryan Emperor Asoka. It was following the mass conversion at this summit that Buddhism spread throughout Lanka with state patronage. Written by bunpeiris
http://www.mysrilankaholidays.com/mihintale.html

[3] The great battle where brother killed brother: Mahabaratha
It is very interesting to remember the opening and closing lines of this great epic. It begins with: "Vyasa sang of the ineffable greatness and splendour of Lord Vasudeva, who is the source and support for everything, who is eternal, unchanging, self-luminous, who is the Indweller in all beings, and the truthfulness and righteousness of the Pandavas." It ends with: "With raised hands, I shout at the top of my voice; but alas, no one hears my words which can give them Supreme Peace, Joy and Eternal Bliss. One can attain wealth and all objects of desire through Dharma (righteousness). Why do not people practise Dharma? One should not abandon Dharma at any cost, even at the risk of his life. One should not relinquish Dharma out of passion or fear or covetousness or for the sake of preserving one’s life. This is the Bharata Gayatri. Meditate on this daily, O man! when you retire to sleep and when you rise from your bed every morning. You will attain everything. You will attain fame, prosperity, long life, eternal bliss, everlasting peace and immortality." Copied from http://www.mahabharataonline.com/

[4] Kathakali
There was never a dancer of the class of Bollywood actress, ever-resplendent Madhuri Dixit, who had trained for eight years in Kathak, one of the eight forms of Indian classical dances. Such was the spell binding effects of Madhuri, following the filming of the 1992 Bollywood movie Beta (Hindi: son), Anil Kapoor, confessed that he had to shake himself up, remind himself that he was a professional actor, not to fall into a trance when a ravishing Madhuri Dixit, red hot in the dark night rocked, rolled, floated, bubbled and sizzled: Dhak Dhak Karne Laga (Hindi: heartbeat). It was a heartbeat on overdrive. Beta won four Filmfare Awards including Best Actress Award for Madhuri Dixit. "For me it is not just about shaking my hands and feet or moving to a rhythm. It just comes from my soul. It's a very spiritual thing for me whether it is a Western number or an Indian one" said Madhuri Dixit. Written by bunpeiris
http://www.bollywoodmoviesz.com/ Bookmark & Share

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Mahabharata 1

Mahabharata
“O Arjuna,”, “in this world I have taught a twofold way of life; the way of knowledge for men who engage in contemplation, & the way of works for men of actions. One cannot maintain even one’s physical life without action.
Therefore, do your allotted work regardless of results, for men attain the highest good by doing work without attachment to its results. Resign yourself to me & fix your consciousness in the self, without desire or egoism, & then fight, freed from your fever.”Krishna
Following is a gleaning from The Argumentative Indian
Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity
By Amartya Sen

The Argumentative Indian
Prolixity is not alien to us in India. We are able to talk at some length. Krishna Menon’s record of the longest speech ever delivered at the United Nations (nine hours non-stop), established half a century ago (when Menon was leading the Indian delegation), has not been equaled by anyone from anywhere. Other peaks of loquaciousness have been scaled by other Indians. We do like to speak.
This is not a new habit. The ancient Sanskrit epics the Ramayana [2] and the Mahabharata [1], which are frequently compared with the Iliad and the Odyssey, are colossally longer than the works that the modest Homer could manage. Indeed, the Mahabharata alone is about seven times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey put together. The Ramayana [3] and the Mahabharata are certainly great epics: I recall with much joy how my own life was vastly enriched when I encountered them first as a restless youngster looking for intellectual stimulation as well as sheer entertainment. But they proceed from stories to stories woven around their principal tales, and are engagingly full of dialogues, dilemmas and alternative perspectives. And we encounter masses of arguments and counterarguments spread over incessant debates and disputations.

Dialogues and Significance
The arguments are also, often enough, quite substantive. For example, the famous Bhagavad Gia, which is one small section of the Mahabharata, presents a tussle between two contrary moral positions-Krishna’s emphasis on doing one’s duty, on one side, and Arjuna’s focus on avoiding bad consequences (and gathering good ones), on the other. The debate occurs on the eve of the Great War that is a central event in the Mahabharata. Watching the two armies readying for war, profound doubts about the correctness of what they are doing raised by Aruba, the peerless and invincible warrior in the army of the just and honorable royal family (the Pandavas) who are about to fight the unjust usurpers (the Kauravas). Arjuna questions whether it is right to be concerned only with one’s duty to promote a just cause and be indifferent to the misery and the slaughter-even of one’s kin-that the war itself would undoubtedly cause. Krisha, a divine incarnation in the form of a human being (in fact, he is also Arjuna’s charioteer), argues against Arjuna. His response takes the form of articulating principles of action- based on the priority of doing one’s duty-which have been repeated again and again in Indian philosophy.

Krishna insists on Arjuna’s duty to fight, irrespective of his evaluation of the consequences. It is a just cause, and as a warrior and a general on whom his side must rely, Arjuna cannot waver from his obligations, no matter what the consequences are.
Krishna’s hallowing of the demands of duty wins the argument, at least as seen in the religious perspective. Indeed, Krishna’s conversations with Arjuna, the Bhagavad Gita, became a treatise of great theological importance in Hindu philosophy, focusing particularly on the ‘removal’ of Arjuna’s doubts. Krishna’s moral position has also been eloquently endorsed by many philosophical and literary commentators across the world, such as Christopher Isherwood and T. S. Eliot. Isherwood in fact translated the Bhagavad Gita into English. This admiration for the Gita, and for Krishna’s arguments in particular, has been a lasting phenomenon in parts of European culture. It was spectacularly praised in the early nineteenth century by Wilhelm von Humboldt as ‘the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue’. In a poem in Four Quartets, Eliot summarizes Krishna’s view in the form of an admonishment: ‘And do not think of the fruit of action/Fare forward.’ Eliot explains: ‘Not fare well, /But fare forward, voyagers.’
And yet, as a debate in which there are two reasonable sides, the epic Mahabharata itself presents, sequentially, each of the two contrary arguments with much care and sympathy. Indeed, the tragic desolation that the post-combat and post-carnage land-largely the Indo-Gangetic plain-seems to face towards the end of the Mahabharata can even be seen as something of a vindication of Arjuna’s profound doubts. Arjuna’s contrary arguments are not really vanquished, no matter what the ‘message’ of the Bhagavad Gita is meant to be. There remains a powerful case for ‘faring well’, and not just ‘forward.
J. Robert Openheimer, the leader of the American team that developed the ultimate ‘weapon of mass destruction’ during the Second World War, was moved to quote Krishna’s words (‘I am become death, the destroyer of the worlds’) as he watched, on 16 July 1945, the awesome force of the first nuclear explosion devised by man. Like the advice that Arjuna had received about his duty as a warrior fighting for a just cause, Oppenheimer the physicist could well find justification in his technical commitment to develop a momb for what was clearly the right side. Scrutinizing-indeed criticizing-his own actions, Oppenhiemer said later on: ‘When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only only after you have had your technical success. Despite that compulsion to ‘fare forward’, there was reason also for reflecting on Arjuna’s concerns; How can good come from killing so many people? And why should I seek victory, kingdom or happiness for my own side?

These arguments remain thoroughly relevant in the contemporary world. The case for doing what one sees as one’s duty must be strong, but how can we be indifferent to the consequences that may follow from our doing what we take to be our just duty? As we reflect on the manifest problems of our global world ( from terrorism, wars and violence to epidemics, insecurity and grueling poverty), or on India’s special concerns (such as economic development, nuclear confrontation or regional peace),it is important to take on board Arjuna’s consequential analysis, in addition to considering Krishna’s arguments for doing one’s duty. The univocal ‘message of the Gita’ requires supplementation by the broader argumentative wisdom of the Mahabharata, of which the Gita is only a small part.

There will be an opportunity in this essay, and in others to follow, to examine the reach and significance of many of the debates and altercations that have figured prominently in the Indian argumentative tradition. We have to take note not only of the opinion that won-or allegedly won-in the debates, but also of the other points of view that were presented and are recorded or remembered. A defeated argument that refuses to be obliterated can remain very alive.
The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity by Amartya Sen. ISBN 0-71399-687-0

Footnotes are by bunpeiris
"Once, while I was in Mumbai, a friend (Malathi Kembhavi) of a friend of mine (Anita A. Lewis) took trouble to take me to her favourite bookshop in Bombay. “The Argumentative Indian” is one of the dozen of books she encouraged me to buy." My Sri Lanka Holidays bunpeiris
[1] Mahabharata is the ultimate literary work.Buy it and read it before you die.
[2] Ramayana, one of the greatest ever epic poems in the world was composed by Valmiki (400 BC, northern India) narrating a great war that is widely believed in India to have taken place in Sri Lanka then called Lanka. The Hindu epic has been orally traditional in Sri Lanka to a great extent. Though Ramayana is considered as mythology in Sri Lanka, some of the important Sri Lanka Holidays attractions are associated with the great poem: Adam's Bridge between Rameswaram at Ramanathapuram of Tamil Nadu the southernmost state of India; Ritigala ancient monastery and wildlife reserve at Ritigala Hill, Rumassala Kanda hill close to Unawatuna Bay Beach: Kanniyai hot springs at Trincomalee; The rock of Hakgala (Jaw Rock) at Hakgala Botanical Gardens close to Nuwara Eliya of Central Highlands.
All of these sites are Sri Lanka Holidays destinations in their own right. Association of Ramayana, in no way heightens or diminishes the value of these attractions.
However, since Ramayana has no historical background at all, so called uncalled for “Ramayana Trail” tourism promotion has been widely condemned as a hoax by the general public as well as in the academic circles of Sri Lanka. A public symposium was held by Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka on Ramayana Trail Hoax.
Though Ramayana has no place in the history and cultural heritage of Sri Lanka, the leading tourism promoter of the island deemed it appropriate to declare: "It is not our job to verify historical accuracies but to encourage tourism, which is what we are doing by promoting the Ramayana Trail." That's a mouthful from the horse's mouth itself and it spilled the beans and the carrot. bunpeiris
Sri Lanka Holidays: Academics and Scholars close ranks to shed light on Ramayana Trail Hoax.
Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka shed light on the hoax and enlightened the public: Professor Tissa Kariyawasma, Prof. Oliver Abeynaike, Dr. Hema Goonatilake, Dr. Nihal Perera, Dr. Malini Dias and Venerable Hegoda Vipassi delivered speeches on "Ramayana in Sinhalese literature", Indian Tourist Authorities' "Buddhist Circuit" but no Indian "Ramayana Circuit', "The factual pre-history of Sri Lanka", "Distortions of archeological evidence" and "My travails in refuting the Ramayana Trail".

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Opium addiction

Opium addiction
Ji, Sethji, said Neel. He ran his eye over the lines and said: It seems that these are excerpts from a memorandum written by a high-ranking Chinese official and sent to the Emperor.
Yes, said Baharam. Go on. What does he say?

Opium is a poisonous drug, brought from foreign countries. To the question, what are its virtues, the answer is: it raises the animal spirits and prevents lassitude. Hence the Chinese continually run into its toils. At first they merely strive to follow the fashion of the day; but in the sequel the poison takes effect, the habit become fixed, and the sleeping smokers are more like corpses-lean and haggard as demons. Such are the injuries which it does to life. Moreover the drug maintains an exorbitant price and cannot be obtained except with the pure metal. Smoking opium [1], in its first stages, impedes business; and when the practice is continued for any considerable length of time, it throws whole families into ruin, dissipates every kind of property, and destroys man himself. There cannot be greater evil than this. In comparison with arsenic I pronounce it tenfold greater poison. A man swallows arsenic because he has lost his reputation and is so involved that he cannot extricate himself. Thus driven to desperation, he takes the dose and is destroyed at once. But those who smoked drug are injured in many different ways.

When the smoker commences the practice, he seems to imagine his spirits are thereby augmented; but he ought to know that this appearance is factitious. It may be compared to raising the wick of a lamp, which, while it increases the flame, hastens the exhaustion of the oil and the extinction of the light. Hence the youth who smoke will shorten their own days and cut off all hope of posterity, leaving their father and mothers and wives without anyone on whom to depend; and those in middle and advanced life, who smoke, will accelerate the termination of their years.
Stop! Bas! Enough.
Bahram snatched the journal out of Neel’s hand and tossed it on a table.
All right, munshiji, it is clear that you can read English without difficulty. If you want the job it is yours.
Above is a gleaning from River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh

Following footnotes are by bunpeiris
[1] Opium
Opium, with its properties of alleviation of pain and induction of sleep together with other virtues then only known to the Ayurvedic medical practitioners and prescribed in Ayurvedic medicine in certain medications and treatments, was imported into Sri Lanka, though in limited quantities, only during the colonial era: Portuguese (1505-1656), the Dutch (1656-1796), and the British (1796-1948). De Queryroz, the Portuguese historian, mentions that during the Portuguese occupation Opium was imported by the king of Kandy. The port of call was Cotiar near Trincomalee, which was part of the kingdom of Kandy at the time. Ryckloff Van Goens, the Dutch governor in Ceylon during 1660-1663, recorded in his memoirs on the importation of opium from Surat and Bengal in India.

In the nineteenth century, the British cranked up the importation of opium with a view of quick profit. In 1834, with the free market in opium that would have destined to corrupt the values of the Sinhalese, there arose a rumor, if found true in substance, that could have been fatal to the British colonialists themselves. Molligoda, the First Adigar of Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe, the last king of Kandy (1798-1815) was suspected of hatching a plot to poison then Governor of Ceylon (1831-1837), Sir Robert Wilmot Horton (Horton Plains, a UNESCO World heritage Site of Sri Lanka Holidays was named after Lady Horton; in fact it was called Lady Horton’s Plains) and the principal officials at a banquet.It was believed the Kandyan chief, the most distinguished aristocrat of Kandy made attempts to seduce, by means Opium, the highly regarded Malay troops of the British colonialists. The opium affairs kept bubbling up now and then, here and there, during the British occupation of Ceylon. To illustrious Major Thomas Skinner (1804 - 1877), the famous builder of Colombo- Kandy Road, the gravitation of his Malay troops towards opium was a matter of consternation.

In June 1857 opium had a sinking feeling: during a squall, the P. & O. liner, Erin carrying a consignment of opium from Bombay to China struck a sand bank and sank at the mouth of the river Kaluganga, thirty miles south of Colombo. The entire consignment of opium, worth 170,000 Sterling Pound, an enormous sum in those days, was lost.

The first opium shop in Sri Lanka was at Chilaw, south of modern Kalpitiya peninsula Beach Resort and it was in existence in 1850. The second opium shop was opened about 1860 in Hambantota, then a small town, yet with a considerable Malay population. The number of shops shot up during the period of 1867-1890 from 31 to 56. Following the orchestrated protest by the Ceylonese, mainly by the Sinhalese Buddhist, in 1867, then governor of Ceylon, Sir West Ridgway, by an ordinance doubled the duty on opium from Ceylon rupees 1 to 3 per pound. The importation of Bang or Ganga was banned too. However Ganja continued to be grown, in deep secrecy, here and there, in the deep jungles of Ceylon: Dr. Richard Lionel Spittle (Dr. R. L. Spittel) (1881 –1969) in his book “Thisaham” narrated how a Malay trader persuaded a Ceylonese Veddha (Sri Lanka’s aborigines) named Thisahami to grow Ganja in his jungle hideout.

The opposition to government policy of opium was spearheaded by the Rev. Hikkaduwa Sri Sumangala (1827-1911), a leading light of Buddhist renaissance, and Mr. S.C. Obeysekera, a member of the Legislative council with a petition to the British colonialists in Ceylon. The signatories’ featured13,967 Sinhalese, 11878 Tamils, 1265 Tamils, 265 Burghers, and 465 of other nationalities. The disparity of the nationalities in comparison to population (Sinhalese: 74%; Tamils: 12%) was owing to the fact, the petition was confined to those literate. In 1867 a committee headed by R. F. Morgan, Queen’s Advocate admitted the increase of opium consumption was probably helped by its free availability in opium shops. To give the devil his due, it must be said, Opium shops in Ceylon were closed down subsequently by a decree British colonial government.

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Opium: Bombay to Canton

Opium: Bombay (Mumbai) to Canton (Guangzhou)

Following text is a gleaning from River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh
Later there would be much discussion on whether the Anahita was struck by the same storm that had hit the Ibis. Such information as was available then made it impossible to come to any reliable determination on this: what was certain was that the Anahita was less than a hundred miles west of Great Nicobar Island, heading for the Nicobar Channel, when she too an into bad weather. She had left Bombay sixteen days earlier and was on her way to Canton, by way of Singapore.

Until then the voyage had been uneventful and the Anahita had sailed through the few squalls that had crossed her path with a ful suit of sails aloft. A sleek and elegant three-master, she was one of the few Bombay-built vessels that regularly outran the swiftest British-and American-made opium carriers, even such legendary ships as Red Rover and Seawitch. On this voyage too she had posted very good times and seemed to be heading for another record run. But the weather in the Bay of Bengal was notoriously unpredictable in September, so when the skies began to darken, the captain, a taciturn New Zealander, wasted no time in snuggling the ship down. When the winds reached gale force he sent down a note to his employer, Seth Bahramji, recommending that he retire to the Owner’s Suite and remain there for the duration.

The "yellow fever" yachts

"factories" where American and English merchants sold opium in Canton, China.

Baharam was still there, hours later, when his purser, Vico, burst in to tell him that the cargo of opium in the ship’s hold had broken loose.
Kya? How is that possible, Vico?
It’s happened, patrao; we have to do something, jaldi.
Following at Vico’s heels, Bahram went hurrying down, struggling to keep his footing on the slippery companion-ladders. The hatch that led to the hold was carefully secured against pilferage, and the rolling of the ship made the chains and padlocks difficult to undo. When at last Bahram was able to lower a lantern through the hatch, he found himself looking down upon a scene that defied comprehension.

Opium Den in Cantaon, China

The cargo in the after-hold consisted almost entirely of opium. Under the battering of the storm, hundreds of chests had broken loose and splintered, spilling their contents. Earthenware containers of opium were crashing into the bulkheads like cannonballs.
Opium, in this form, was of a mud-brown color: although leathery to the touch, it dissolved when mixed and stirred with liquids. The Anahita’s builders had not been unmindful of this, and a great deal of ingenuity had been expended in trying to make the hold watertight. But the storm was shaking the vessel so hard that the joins between the planks had begun to bleed, letting in a slick of rain-and-bilge-water. The wetness had weakened the hemp bindings that held the cargo in place and they had snapped; the chests had crashed into each other, spilling their contents into the sludge. Waves of this gummy, stinking liquid were now sweeping from side to side, breaking against the walls of the hold as the vessel rolled and lurched.

[Opium factory in Patna,India:stacking room and drying room]

Nothing like this had ever happened to Bahram before: he had ridden out many a storm, without having a consignment of opium run amuck as it had now. He liked to think of himself s a careful man and in the course of thirty-odd years in the China trade, he had evolved his own procedures for stacking the chests in which the drug was packed. The opium in the hold was of two kinds: about two thirds of it was ‘Malwa’, from western India- a product that was sold in the shape of small, round cakes, much like certain kinds of Jaggery [1]. These were shipped without any protective covering, other than a wrapping of leaves and a light dusting of poppy ‘trash’. The rest of the shipment consisted of ‘Bengal’ opium, which had more durable packaging, with each cake of the drug being fitted inside a hard-shelled clay container, of about the shape and size of a cannonball. Every chest contained forty of these and each ball was nested inside a crib of poppy leaves, straw, and each ball was nested inside a crib of poppy leaves, straw, and other remains from the harvest. The chests were made of mango-wood and were certainly sturdy enough to keep their contents secure during the three or four weeks it usually took to sail from Bombay to Canton; breakages were rare, and damage, when it occurred, was generally caused by seepage and damp. To prevent this, Bahram generally left some space between the rows o that air could circulate freely between the chests.
Over the years, Bahram’s procedures had proved their worth: through decades of travelling between India and China he had never, in the course of a single voyage, had to write off more than a chest or two of his cargo. Experience had given him such confidence in his methods that he had not taken the trouble to check the hold when the Anahita was hit by the storm. It was the crashing of the runway chests that had alerted the ship’s crew, who had then brought the problem to Vico’s attention.

Looking down now, Bahram could see the crates crashing against the bulkheads like rafts against a reef; all round the hold, hard-shelled balls of opium were exploding upon the timbers, and gobs of the raw gum were hurtling about like shrapnel.

Footnotes by bunpeiris
[1] Hakuru (Snhala: Jaggery) is produced from sugar cane and coconut palm in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. But then the finest quality jaggery is a product of the sap of Caryota urens (Sago Palm or Fishtail Palm), a species of flowering plant in the palm family. The epithet urens is Latin for 'stinging' alluding to the chemicals in the fruit The sago palm is tapped for producing jaggery in Sri Lanka, West Bengal, South India and Pakistan. In Sri Lanka Sago Palm called Kitul grows in abundance in the wet zone. The nature and adventure attraction of Kitulgala (Sinhala: rock of Sago palm trees), famous for White Water rafting in the rapids of River Mahaweli Ganga, affords the opportunity to taste Kitul Palm Honey with Curd (fermented buffalo milk) as well as Kitul Palm Jaggery. Such is the distinctive taste of Kitul Palm Honey and Kitul Palm Jaggery, no world in English language seems to serve the purpose of describing it satisfactory: ‘tastes like molasses, brown sugar or maple syrup’ do no justice at all.
Kitul Jaggery is produced in the rural areas of the Central Highlands of Sri Lanka. The access to these villages can be made via the hill country health resorts of Bandarawela, Badulla and Nuwara Eliya of Sri Lanka Holidays. The rural areas of the Kandy district too produce Kitul Palm Jaggery and Kitul Palm Honey. During the Sinhala and Hindu New Year in April, Kitul Palm Honey and Kitul Palm Jaggery are in high demand: no new year feast would be complete without the traditional sweets such as Katta bibikkan, Kalu dodol (both are baked soft cakes made of Rice flour, coconut milk and Kitul Palm jaggery or Honey) and Saudodol (cooked pudding of Rice flour steamed and solidified, coconut milk and Kitul Palm jaggery or Honey). All these sweet cakes are very lightly spiced with Ceylon Cinnamon, Sri Lanka Cardammom (Enasal) and Karubunati(Sinhala: cloves) of Spice Island.

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Poppy fields

Poppy fields, Opium, Taliban, Mujahadeen, Russians and Americans

Following is an extraction from Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie
The Russians were in Afghanistan and consuqently many Afghans had fled to Pakistan, and were even to be found at forward camp number 22 in the “free”-Azad-sector of Kashmir. In spite of the enormous numbers of refugees occupying huge, town-sized camps in the Pak northwest, the Afghans were not poor. There were extensive opium fields in the vicinity of the camps and the refugee chieftains brought their way into the poppy business, using the gold and jewelry they had brought across the border for capital and backing it up with menaces and guns. Once they had gained the control of poppy fields they instituted a system of double cropping so that they could produce heroin as well as opium. The income from the heroin is large enough to pay off the Pak authorities and to pay for the costs of the refugee camps as well. The authorities turned a blind eye to what was going on in the poppy fields because it prevented the refugees from becoming a burden on the state and besides there were the payoffs, which were generous.

Poppy field in Pakistan

Poppy field in Bakwa, Aghaistan

Opium field in Kandhar,Afghanitan

Poppy field in Kashmir

The Afghans had freedom fighters of their own, and the United States decided to support these freedom fighters against its own great enemy, which had occupied their country. U. S. operatives in the field-CIA, Counter-Terrorism and Special Units personal-took to referring to these fighters as the Muj, which sounded mysterious and exciting and concealed the fact that the word mujahid meant the same thing as the word jihadi, “holy warrior”. Weapons, blankets and cash poured into northern Pakistan, and some of this aid did reach the Muj. Much of it ended up in the arms bazaars of the wild frontier zone, and a percentage of it reached Azad Kashmir. After a while the fighters gathering in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir started calling themelves the Kashmiri Muj. The ISI provided them with powerful long-range missiles which had been intended for the Afghan front, but had unfortunately been diverted along the way. Other high-quality arms also began to appear at FC-22: automatic grenade launchers of Soviet and Chinese origin, rocket pods with solar-powered timing devices that made possible delayed-firing rocket barrages, 60-mm mortars. At a certain point Stringer missiles, SAMs, were also made available to the “Kashmiri Muj”. Weapons training took up much everyday. The chief instructor was an Afghan war buddy of Janjalani the Filipino’s, a black-turbaned warrior from Kandahar who called himself simply Talib, meaning “the student”. The word for knowledge was taleem. Those who acquired knowledge were scholars; Taliban. Talib the student was a mullah of a sort, or, at least, had been trained at a religious school, madrasa.

Like the iron mullah Bulbul Fakh, however, he never mentioned the name of his seminary. Talib the Afghan had lost an eye in battle [in Afghanistan] and wore a black patch. As a result he had been temporarily withdrawn from the front line, but he was determined to return to combat duties as soon as possible. “In the meanwhile,” he said, “God’s work can be done here [Kahmir] also.”
Talib the Afghan’s one eye bored through Shalimar the clown and seemed to read his thoughts, to see the pretence there as Janjalani had, the untold, forbidden secret. Janjalani understood his reasons but Shalimar the clown feared Talib would not. He felt like a fraud and feared exposure constantly. He had not surrendered his self as he had been required to do, had hidden it deep beneath a performance of abnegation, the greatest performance he had ever given. He had his own goals in life and he would not give them up. I am ready to kill but I am not ready to stop being myself, he repeated many times in his heart. I will kill readily but I will not give myself up. But his goals did not officially exist, not in this dangerous place.
“You were an actor,” Talib the Afghan said scornfully in bad, heavily accented Urdu. “God spits on actors. God spits on dancing and singing. Maybe you are acting now. Maybe you are a traitor and a spy. You are fortunate I am not the one in charge of this camp. I would immediately order the execution of entertainers. God spits on entertainment. I would also order execution of dentists, professors, sportsmen and whores. God spits on intellectualism and licentious and games. If you hold the rocket launcher like that it will break your shoulder. This is the way to do it.”

“The Americans bring us weapons to kill the Russians,” Zahir said. “Thus even the infidel can be made to do the work of God. They send their important people to deal with us and think of us as allies. It is amusing.” Ambassador Max Ophuls, who these days was supporting terror activities while calling himself an ambassador of counterterrorism, had been in chare of liaison with Talib the Afghan branch of the Muj.
He was ready for battle. Winter was dissolving into spring and the mountain pathways were becoming passable. The forward bases were filling up with men. FC-22 was bursting at the seams with men with the snarling, spittle-flecked manner of attack dogs straining to be unleashed. New groups were appearing everyday, or so it seemed: Harakas, Lashkars [1], Hizabs of this or that, martyrdom or faith or glory. The word was that Amanullah Khan had come to Pakistan from England to assume command of the JKLF. Shalimar the clown went through his daily routine, the fitness regimen, the commando training, the weapons work, and wondered what it would be like to kill a man. Then the iron mullah asked him if he would like to go abroad.

Footnotes by bunpeiris
[1] Lashkars
Sri Lanka too had its painful share of Lashkars or Lascarins (or Lascareen) (Sinhala: laskirigngna) during the colonial era of Portuguese (1505-1656), Dutch (1656-1805), British (1805-1948). Those militias of Lascarins had been composed of Europeans, Malabar Sipahis Indonesians, Javans and Malays, Chinese or even Criminals from Batavia. They were involved in numerous battles of European colonial powers against the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka. In the year 1795, during the little known brief occupation of Kandy, then impregnable domain of the Sinhalese king, by the Dutch lead by Van Eck too was strengthened by a militia of Lascarins (or Lascareen). Today Kandy (the cultural capital and gateway to the Central Highlands) is, one of 8 UNESCO World Heritage Site is a major tourist attraction of Sri Lanka Holidays.
To learn more of Opium and Heroin visit "Cold Turkey Off Heroin".
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Cold turkey off Heroin

Cold turkey off Heroin
Following is a gleaning from Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts ISBN 0-349-11754-3

We all cope with anxiety and stress, to one degree or another, with the help of a cocktail of chemicals produced in the body and released in the brain. Chief among them is the endorphin group. The endorphins are peptide neurotransmitters that have pain-relieving properties. Anxiety and stress and pain bring on the endorphin response as a natural coping mechanism.
When we take any of the opiates-morphine or opium or heroin, in particular-the body stops producing endorphins. When we stop talking opiates, there’s a lag of between five or fourteen days before the body begins a new endorphin production cycle. In the meantime, in that black, tortured crawlspace of one to two weeks without heroin and without endorphins, we learn what anxiety and stress and pain really are.

What’s it like, Karla asked me once, cold turkey off heroin?
I tried to explain it.
Think about every time in your life that you’ve ever been afraid, really afraid. Someone sneaks up behind you when you think you’re alone, and shouts to frighten you. The gang of thugs closes in around you.
You fall from a great height in a dream, or you stand on the very edge of a steep cliff. Someone hold you under water and you feel the breath gone, and you scramble, fight, and claw you way to the surface.
You lose control of the car and see the wall rushing into your soundless shout. Then add them all up, all those chest-tightening terrors, and feel them all at once, all at the same time, hour after hour, and day after day.
And think of every pain you’ve ever known-the burn with hot oil, the sharp silver of glass, the broken bone, the gravel rash when you fell on the rough road in winter, the headache and earache and the toothache. Then add them all up, all those groin-squeezing, stomach tensing shrieks of pains, and feel them all at once, hour after hour, and day after day.
Then think of every anguish you’ve ever known. Remember the death of a loved one. Remember a lover’s rejection. Recall you feelings of failure and shame and unspeakably bitter remorse. And add them all up, all the heart-stabbing grieves and miseries, and feel them all at once, hour after hour, and day after day.

That’s cold turkey. Cold turkey off heroin is life with the skin torn away
The assault of anxiety on the unprotected mind, the brain without natural endorphins, makes men and women mad. Every junkie going through cold turkey is mad. The madness is so fierce and cruel that some die of it. And in the temporary insanity of that skinned, excruciated world, we commit crimes. And if we survive, years later and become well, our healthy recollections of those crimes leaves us wretched, bewildered, and as self-disgusted as men and women who betray their comrades and country under torture.

Two full days and nights into the torment, I knew I wasn’t going to make it. Most of the vomiting and diarrhea had passed, but the pain and anxieties were worse, much worse, every minute. Beneath the screaming in my blood there was a calm, insistent voice; You can stop this…you can fix this… you can stop this… take the money.. get a fix… you can stop this pain…
Nazeer’s bamboo and coconut-fiber cot was in the far corner of the room. I lurched toward it, watched closely by the burly Afghan, who was still sitting on hi mat near the door. Trembling and moaning with pain, I dragged the cot closer to the great window that overlooked out on the sea. I took up cotton sheet and began to tear at tit with my teeth. It gave way in few places, and I ripped it along the length, tearing off strips of cloth. Frantic in my movements and close to panic, I hurled two thick, embroidered quilts onto the rope bed for a mattress and lay down on it. Using two of the strips, I tied my ankles to the bed. With a third strip, I secured my left wrist. Then I lay down, and turned my head to look at Nazeer. I held out the remaining strip, and asked him with my eyes to bind my arm to the bed. It was the first time that we’d ever met one another’s eyes to bind my arm to the bed. It was the first time that we’d ever met one another’s eyes in an equally honest stare.

He rose from his square of carpet and walked toward me, holding the stare. He took the strip of cloth from my hand and bound my right wrist to the frame of the bed. A shout of trapped, panic-fear escaped from my open mouth, and another. I bit down on my tongue, biting through the flesh at the sides until blood ran past my lips. Nazeer nodded slowly. He tore another thick strip from the sheet and twirled it into a corkscrew tube. Sliding it between my teeth, he tried the gag behind my head. And I bit down on the devil’s tail. And I screamed. And I turned my head to see my own reflection tied to the night in the window. And for a while I was Modena, waiting and watching and screaming with my eyes.

Two days and nights I was tied to the bed. Nazeer nursed me with tenderness and constancy. He was always there. Every time I opened my eyes, I felt his rough hand my brow, wiping the sweat and the tears into my hair. Every time the lightening strike of cramp twisted a leg or arm or my stomach, he was there, massaging warmth into the gag, he held my eyes with his, willing me to endure and succeed. He removed the gag when I choked on a trickle of vomit or my blocked nose let no air pass, but he was a strong man and he knew that I didn’t want my screams to be heard. When I nodded my head, he replaces the gag and tied it fast.

And then, when I knew that I was either strong enough to stay or too weak to leave, I nodded to Nazeer, blinking my eyes, and he removed the gag for the last time. One by one he untied the bonds at my wrists and ankles. He brought me a broth made from chicken and barley and tomatoes, unspiced, except for salt. It was the richest and most delicious thing I ever tasted in my life. He fed it to me, spoon by spoon. After an hour, when I finished the little bowl, he smiled at me for the first time, and that smile was like sunlight on sea rocks after summer rain.
Cold turkey goes on for about two weeks, but the first five days are the worst. If you can get through the first five3 days, if you can crawl and drag yourself into that sixth morning without drugs, you know you’re clean, and you know you’ll make it. Every hour, for the next eight to en days you feel a little better and a little stronger. The cramps fade, the nausea passes, the fever and chills subside. After a while, the worst of it simply that you can’t sleep. You lie on the bed at n night, twisting and writhing in discomfort, and sleep never comes. In those last days and very long nights of the cold turkey, I became a Standing Baba: I never sat or lay down, all day and all night, until exhaustion collapsed my legs at last and I sank into sleep.
And it passes, the turkey passes, and you emerge from the cobra bite of heroin addiction like any survivor from any disaster: dazed, wounded forever, and glad to be alive.

Amy Jade Winehouse (14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011) before and after her addiction to heroin and cocaine.

Nazeer took my first sarcastic jokes, twelve days after the cold turkey began, as the cue fro my training to commence. From the sixth day I’d been walking with him as light exercise, and for the fresh air. The first of those walks ahead been slow and halting, and I’d returned to the house after fifteen minutes. By the twelfth day I was walking the length of the beach with him, hoping to tire myself so much that I could sleep. Finally, he took me to the stable where Khader’s horses were kept. The stable was a converted boathouse, one street away from the beach. The horses were trained for beginning riders, and carried tourists up and down the beach in the high season. The while gelding and grey mare were large, docile animals. We took them from Khader’s stable-master and led them down to the flat, hard-packed sand of the beach.

Footnotes by bunpeiris
Narcotics including heroin and opium are banned in Sri Lanka. Importation of Narcotics such as Heroin into Sri Lanka is an offense that carries the death penalty. However the capital punishment hasn’t been carried out recent. The most notorious case of capital punishment was that in respect of the assassination of Prime Mininster S. W. R. D. Bandaranayake. The Sri Lankan seized to smile. Courts of Law found Buddhist monk Somarama guilty; but the nation wasn't convinced at all. There was a notorious local name & name of a foreign Intelligence Agency in the winds of conspiracy. Those were the days of the assassination of another nationalist, Patrice Lulumba. Ceylon's Warren commission + John Kennedy + Edgar Hoover + FBI + CIA + Mob + Marylyn Monroe + Lee Harvey Oswald + second gunman + Oliver Stone maze. Please refrain from bringing narcotics to Sri Lanka even for private consumption. You are bound to lose all your smiles. And Sri Lankans too will have the their smiles frozen.
The only criminal that ever walked to the gallows with a smile in his face in Sri Lanka was said to be Koti Albert that was in the sixties. Defiant Keppetipola and Defiant Puran Appu (Francisco Fernando) weren’t criminals, they are national heroes who fought against British colonialists in Sri Lanka , then called Ceylon. In the last day too, at the Sacred Temple of the Tooth at Kandy, Kepptipola wished to be born again Sri Lanka to fight against the British; Puran Appu facing the firing squad, proclaimed that if there were another ten men like him in Ceylon, the British would have been wiped out .
During the seventies Sri Lanka Holidays Hikkaduwa of South western coastal belt swarmed with European counter culture stinking long-haired hippies smoking narcotics. Following the decline of Hippie counter culture, Hikkaduwa too got cleansed. Today Hikkaduwa is one of the major beach tourist resorts of Sri Lanka Holidays.
Opium is grown in great secrecy, on a small scale, in the deep jungles of some of the dry zone areas of Sri Lanka. Consumption of opium that is called “Ganja” in Sri Lanka (Uzbek, Moldavian and Ukrainian girls too call it Ganja) is a punishable offence though not strictly enforced. However Ganja in larger quantities in possession could land you in unnecessary trouble in Sri Lanka.

Images are by courtesy of
http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/268411/enlarge
http://www.drugrehab.co.uk/FAQ-heroin.htm
http://www.howcelebsloseweight.com/2008/08/25/amy-winehouse-before-heroin/
http://blog.rockstarsuperstarproject.com/
http://www.heroinaddicts.org/help-for-heroin-addiction/

To read about Poppy fields viist here.

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